Oh no, don’t get me wrong, my argument isn’t “We should compromise and go further right”, it’s more “If we can grab someone who hasn’t had a smear campaign run on them for half a decade, we should.” I’d love to see AOC in the White House, I just worry that the well has already been poisoned, so to speak, for half a decade now. She’s been the GOP boogeyman #1 for some time, and some of that soaks through to ‘centrist’ swing voters, unfortunately.
AOC’s been targeted because she’s talented. There isn’t a second sleeper AOC who’s just as charismatic and politically talented, but no one’s ever heard of them. The amount of targeted smear campaigns in conservative media will correspond closely with how much potential the GOP thinks someone has.
Can you point to an effective female federal politician who hasn’t had a shear campaign run?
Duckworth?
I mean, there will always be some smear campaigns in a politician’s past, but AOC has been a very, very prominent target. Like, anytime you see Fox News playing, they’ve always got a picture of her looking angry for the mandatory Two Minutes Hate. A non-negligible amount of people are easily convinced by repetition - AOC is their most common target, and has been their most common target for 5 years. She has a lot more antipathy built up against her than probably any other member of the Squad. AOC was their replacement for Clinton hate. Only Ilhan Omar is really comparable in terms of being used as a GOP boogeyman.
And I mean, like I said, this doesn’t at all mean that I’m opposed to an AOC candidacy. In a line-up like we had in 2020, I’d’ve voted for her even over Bernie. Not over 2016 Bernie, though. But that doesn’t mean I’m optimistic about her chances.
Ah, I hear ya! Who would you like to see run that you think could effectively dodge that sort of poison pill status?
Who would you like to see run that you think could effectively dodge that sort of poison pill status?
It wasn’t a factor when the party selected Clinton. It’s only a factor for AOC because she’s a progressive.
Nail on the head. I get the feeling that she’s still tracked for 2028, assuming we aren’t living in the neo-confederacy by then. I can’t fucking stand having to wait another 4+ years for a candidate that I can just be comfortable expressing support in. What would America or the world even be like if Al Gore didn’t have an election taken by the supreme court? Feels like a future they just can’t stop taking from us because some enlightened centrist is going to say “you can’t win without the middle.” Fuck the middle. It’s progress or fascism. They need to pick a side already so we can get to getting. If they need anymore time to decide than we don’t want them.
No clue, honestly. Most convenient would be a sudden and meteoric rise from a regional sensation to a national one, like Obama in 08 or Bernie in 16, but one can’t count on that, of course. I’ve got a ‘wait and see’ attitude as to the 2027-8 primaries, see who declares or seems interested in running before sifting through.
God, I hate that I’m thinking about primaries half a decade out from now.
